‘Thor: Ragnarok’ Hires a New Screenwriter for Director Taika Waititi

Of all the Marvel properties, Thor is often regarded as a lesser favorite among fans, with the high-fantasy world of Asgard proving a tricky one to properly adapt. But the studio made a brilliant move in hiring What We Do in the Shadows director Taika Waititi to helm the third installment in the franchise. At the time, we assumed Waititi would also be handling screenwriting duties, but that’s not the case, as Marvel has tapped a separate screenwriter for Thor: Ragnarok.

THR reports that Marvel has hired Stephany Folsom to officially script Thor: Ragnarok for Waititi, who heads into production next year on the project, with Chris Hemsworth reprising his role as the brawny superhero and Tom Hiddleston also likely returning as Loki, though the latter has not been confirmed.

Folsom wrote the screenplay for 1969: A Space Odyssey or How Kubrick Learned to Stop Worrying and Land on the Moon, which was featured on the 2013 Black List and offers a fictional account of a publicist who convinces Stanley Kubrick to collaborate with NASA so they can fake the moon landing.

She also wrote The Princess of North Sudan, an upcoming Disney film that tells the true story of an American man who moves his family to Africa, where he claims a large piece of land in his name and deems himself and his kin as its royal rulers.

Marvel has taken strides over the last couple of years to diversify their projects in front of and behind the scenes, with Black Panther and Captain Marvel films in the works and the incredibly smart, exceptionally great Jessica Jones series from showrunner Melissa Rosenberg. The Captain Marvel film is being written by Nicole Perlman (who wrote an early draft of Guardians of the Galaxy) and Meg LeFauve (Inside Out), while Marvel has been seeking similarly diverse options for Black Panther.

Folsom’s hiring is another step in the right direction, chiefly because she wasn’t a woman chosen to work on a female-centric film, but a talented writer who just happens to be a woman, selected to work on one of Marvel’s challenging, action-fantasy sequel.